Port settles four-year legal dispute

Thursday

Aug 30, 2007 at 12:01 AMAug 30, 2007 at 6:41 AM

STOCKTON - Environmental activists and Stockton port officials have settled four years of legal and regulatory disputes over new commercial shipping and hundreds of acres of industrial development at the former naval base of Rough and Ready Island.

Reed Fujii

STOCKTON - Environmental activists and Stockton port officials have settled four years of legal and regulatory disputes over new commercial shipping and hundreds of acres of industrial development at the former naval base of Rough and Ready Island.

Under the settlement announced Wednesday, the port will require cleaner-burning diesel trucks and encourage ships to use cleaner fuels; guard against impacts from dredging operations; and pay the plaintiffs more than $1.65 million in legal and environmental monitoring fees.

Parties in the case expressed satisfaction with the outcome, including environmental groups Baykeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council; residents of the Riviera Cliffs neighborhood who had objected to noise, light and air pollution from Rough and Ready; and port officials.

"The port and the environmental groups have actually been able to negotiate a settlement that will benefit our local environment and will do things that actually exceed regulatory standards, and it will allow the port to move forward with our business activity that brings jobs to Stockton," said Richard Aschieris, the port's director.

In fact, dredging work that had been delayed by lawsuits last year should begin next month, he noted.

Plaintiffs' lead counsel Robert Perlmutter, with the San Francisco firm of Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, called the deal "a great achievement and a great settlement all around."

In terms of air and water quality protection, he said, "We got a major reduction in the environmental impacts."

Ann Chargin, one of 19 Riviera Cliffs residents who signed the settlement, read a statement by telephone:

"I am glad the port finally came around after five years of litigation and in a spirit of compromise has seriously addressed the issues in dispute. I feel that we have succeeded in getting important changes that offer some degree of protection to our environment," she said. "I still have reservations about an inland port, primary because of the impact its activities have on the environment, our dangerously polluted air and degraded water, as well as deep concerns about the risks to our fragile Delta levees."

Terms of the deal include the port paying to install double-pane windows in Chargin's home to help shut out noise from port operations.

Bill Jennings, who initiated some of the legal actions against the port as former head of DeltaKeeper, a group associated with Baykeeper, gave the settlement a mixed review.

"The folks that brought the suit achieved about as much as could be reasonably expected," he said, but added that environmental problems will still exist.

"What it comes down to is we have a very fragile, impaired area of the Delta, and we have a major industrial expansion within that area," Jennings said.

In particular, he predicted the settlement will not fully resolve the problem of low dissolved oxygen.

Sejal Choksi, program director at San Francisco-based Baykeeper, disagreed.

"We think that this agreement is pretty strong," she said. "We're going to have a lot of control over the project and certainly ensure the environmental impacts are minimized."

Many requirements exceeded current state and federal standards for environmental protections.

David Pettit, a senior attorney with the National Resources Defense Council in Santa Monica, said the settlement will have a significant effect on air quality.

"Somewhere over 300 superclean trucks will now be on the road in the San Joaquin Valley that would not have been on the road if this settlement had not been made," he said.

Warren Wong, a Riviera Cliffs resident who parted ways with his neighbors over their suit against the port, said he was glad to hear of the settlement.

"That's good. ... There's no reason to stop the progress," he said.

His house, built in the 1950s while the World War II-era naval base was still active, has double-insulated walls and other features to reduce outside noise.

"It shouldn't deprive people from working over there," he said. "That's not right."